Bangladesh’s central bank, the Bangladesh Bank (BB), has reportedly stopped a move by the AnonTex Group — an (entity garment manufacturer) that has allegedly indulged in loan irregularities — from rescheduling its default loans on easy terms.
According to media reports which cited a high official of the concerned bank, the BB recently stopped a so-called plan by the AnonTex Group, to reschedule its defaulted loans amounting Taka 3,742 crore under easy terms and, in which its bank, the state-run Janata Bank, was allegedly also on board with the plan.
The reports maintained that between 2010 and 2015, 22 companies of AnonTex Group were given around Taka 3,527.9 crore in loans by Janata Bank (which is, reportedly, more than 25 per cent of the lender’s capital base) in violation of the single borrower exposure limit set in the Bank Company Act 1991 while adding that as of September 2020, the total loans held by AnonTex Group stand at Taka 6,528.6 crore, of which Taka 2,800 crore were default loans that were rescheduled in 2019 through rescheduling and that garment manufacturer wanted to regularise the rest of the sum.
However, the financial integrity and customer services department of the BB, Financial Intelligence Unit, the banking inspection department and the foreign exchange inspection department were, reportedly, all against allowing AnonTex to reschedule its default loans by paying just 2 per cent down payment, in contrast to the 10 per cent to 50 per cent as per rules and subsequent to which the banking regulation and policy department of the central bank, reportedly, sent a letter to Janata informing the decision.